Dr Ritin Fernandez is the recipient of international and national awards related to her work in evidence synthesis for clinical practice. She is currently the Professor (Clinical Excellence) at the Centre for Research in Nursing and Health which is a joint initiative between the University of Wollongong and St George Hospital Kogarah, Australia. Ritin is also the Director of the Centre for Evidence Based Initiatives in Health Care: A collaborating centre of the Joanna Briggs Institute. At the University of Wollongong and St. George hospital, Ritin plays a leadership role in engaging nursing and multidisciplinary clinicians in order to develop Clinical research to address the growing challenges in providing evidence based health care to patients.

Ritin is passionate about Evidence synthesis and is leading evidence synthesis projects in heart disease and diabetes with investigators from India and Turkey. Ritin has undertaken extensive work in multicultural health specifically large scale research in the Indian community in Australia and has contributed towards improving the Heart health of Indian Australians. Additionally, Ritin has undertaken research around the clinical nursing workforce and teaching and learning in the clinical setting. Ritin has extensive experience in population studies, systematic reviews, meta-analysis and quantitative research methods having published numerous reviews in the Cochrane Library and the Joanna Briggs database. Her research and teaching are strongly linked. Ritin has developed and taught courses in Systematic reviews, meta-analysis, meta-synthesis and quantitative analysis to postgraduate coursework students and higher degree research students at UOW. Her goal is to generate evidence in order to inform health policy and change clinical practice thus improving health outcomes for people globally.